Pseudosasa japonica
Common name
arrow bamboo
Family
Poaceae
Flora category
Vascular – Exotic
Structural class
Grasses
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
PSEJAP
Conservation status
Not applicable
Habitat
Terrestrial. Roadsides, riverbanks, in or around plantations, especially near garden boundaries, in scrub and on forest margins, abandoned garden sites and waste places (Edgar and Connor 2000).
Features
Medium sized bamboo up to about 5 m, forming dense thickets with extensive rhizomes. Culm dark green, banded white just below nodes. Branches one per node, sometimes 2-3 at upper nodes, leaf sheath glabrous, often purplish above. Leaf blade 3.5 by 25 cm long, one on each branch. This species has flowered frequently in NZ, the inflorescence is purplish on the exposed side, spikelets 4-9 cm, flattened.
Similar taxa
P. japonica is the bamboo species most commonly known to flower in NZ. Distinctive vegetative characters include round, not notched, stem, the white band below the node and single branches on lower nodes, with 2-3 on upper nodes.
Flowering
Flowered throughout 80”s not since.
Life cycle
Perennial. Can flower continuously for several years. The thickets do not die completely after flowering although large parts often do (Edgar and Connor 2000). Spread is vegetative or by planting, Viable seed is uncommon (ibid.). No regeneration from seed so far has been reported (ibid.)
Year naturalised
1968
Origin
Japan, S. Korea
Reason for introduction
Ornamental
Etymology
japonica: Of Japan